


Touchdown

by franticatlantic



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 04:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8609710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franticatlantic/pseuds/franticatlantic
Summary: Michael Gibson makes the stupidest bet of his high school career and Josh has to suffer for it.
Or not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [someone](http://vintagetyler.tumblr.com/post/153354895888/prompt-gender-fluidtylercheerleadertyler-and) wanted genderfluid!cheerleader!ty and footballplayer!josh so i hope you like this!
> 
> a note: ty's gender fluidity is how i experience being fluid myself. many others experience fluidity differently than what is depicted here. thank you!

“Dude, this is the stupidest bet you’ve ever made.”

“For the thousandth time, I thought we’d win.”

“Duh. We assume we’ll win every game, doesn’t mean you should go around making dumbass bets with your brother.”

Michael Gibson is the quarterback for the Stevenson High Mustangs. His brother, Peter, attends the rivaling high school and plays football for them as a running back. Behind the rest of their teams’ backs the two made a bet at home that whoever lost the following game would have to come to the school and cheer for the winning team at their next game.

Which is how Josh has found himself on the bus rolling over bumpy gravel and stifling a little smile behind his hand. He’s as upset as the next guy that Michael made such a stupid bet with his brother and is so hellbent on keeping it, but he’s also excited. Because going to this game means seeing Ty Joseph, one of the rivaling school’s head cheerleaders.

Josh originally met Ty at the beginning of this school year, when he finally graduated from the JV team to the varsity team. After the first game of the semester, Debby had shaken her green and white streaked pom poms and began pulling Josh to the other side of the field to introduce him to some of her friends. A blonde girl named Jenna, and Ty, had been among them. They hit it off immediately, but Josh had yet to tell anyone about the gigantic crush he’d developed after only a couple minutes of knowing Ty, with his wide brown eyes and pouting lips and short, short skirt.

They’d had dozens of interactions since then, had met up at afterparties and gatherings of mutual friends from both teams, and Josh always seemed to find himself tongue tied around Ty, not knowing what to say to make Ty like him more. Ty never seemed to mind, though, always laughed at Josh’s lame jokes and leaned in flirtily to touch his arm or the center of his chest.

Even the memory of it makes him-

“Right, Josh?”

“Huh?” Josh looks around, finds Brad staring him down with an arched eyebrow.

“I said, right?”

Having not heard the question, Josh coughs. “Uh, yeah.”

As the rest of the team goes back to their berating of Michael, Josh looks back out the window at the passing trees - leaves dropping in preparation for the frost of winter - and lets the rocking of the bus lull him back into his daydream.

-

The air on the field is crisp and chilly, whipping Josh’s windbreaker around him. It’s late November with only a few games left this semester and the announcer’s voice is booming over the loud speaker, introducing the home and visiting teams.

“We also have in attendance today the Stevenson High Mustangs!” A boo goes up from the crowd, though this one isn’t as loud as the one that erupted when the actual contesting team was announced. “The Mustangs lost a rather unfortunate bet with our own Panthers so they’ll be helping us cheer on our team today. Everyone give it up for them!”

The boo changes into an aggrieved cheer and Josh waves, grudgingly, along with the rest of his team stood along the sidelines.

“This is so fucking stupid,” someone - he thinks it’s Rhett - says from behind him.

Out of the corner of his eye Josh sees a flash of yellow and red, pleated skirts and white knee highs as the Panther cheerleaders file onto the field, waving their pom poms and jumping energetically around.

Josh looks for Ty as the cheerleaders take their positions in the middle of the field for their opening cheer. He finds her in the middle, past Jenna and one of Debby’s other friends she introduced him to, but whose name he forgets. Ty’s hair is much shorter than the last time Josh saw it, buzzed right down to the scalp. The bright red and yellow of the Panthers logo plays beautifully with Ty’s tan skin and his legs slope deliciously down to his socks, which Josh tries his hardest to keep his eyes away from. Especially that patch of skin showing just above the socks, under Ty’s skirt, where his thighs rest supple and soft.

The cheer they do is simple, only a few seconds long before the cheerleaders are streaming off the field to make way for the players. Most of them line up alongside the water cooler, pom poms rustling, but Ty makes a beeline straight for Josh, barreling into him with a hug.

Ty smells like Fall leaves and the playful childhood scent of crayons. His arms are around Josh’s shoulders, holding tight. Until they’re not and Ty hops around excitedly in front of him.

“I’m so glad you guys lost that bet.” This close up, Josh can see there’s glitter on Ty’s eyelids and a faint sheen of lip gloss on his full lips.

“Dude, you changed your hair.”

Ty smiles, runs the flat of one hand over the stubble of hair. “I was feeling super masc the other day and shaved it all off. Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Josh says, afraid he’s already starting to sound awkward and boring. “Today?”

“You can pick.” Ty flashes another smile at him, little crooked teeth showing through.

Josh thinks, takes in the glitter and the lip gloss and - though he tries not to - the smooth expanse of Tyler’s thighs leading up under the skirt. “You look really pretty today. The prettiest girl on the cheer squad, that’s for sure.”

Ty blushes and it matches the red in her uniform. Pom poms clutched in one hand, she uses the other to start pulling Josh toward the water cooler. Ty’s palm is warm against Josh’s, heat stretching all the way up into Josh’s wrist, making him lightheaded.

Jenna’s by the cooler, blonde hair pulled back in tight braids. She laughs right in Josh’s face. “Oh, look. It’s one of the losers.”

Josh hadn’t noticed, but the rest of his team is now down on the far end of the sideline sulking as they huddle against the cold. He runs a hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t be too mean to me if I were you. Ty might beat you up.”

Speaking of Ty, Josh glances at her to find that she’s bending over, pouring two cups of water. Her skirt is riding deliciously up her backside and Josh blushes. Jenna notices. “Please. Ty wouldn’t be able to beat up a fly.”

Ty scoffs and straightens up, hands one of the cups of water to Josh. “I can be fierce if I wanna be,” she pouts.

Jenna snorts. “If by fierce you mean like, RuPaul fierce.”

“Never seen it,” Ty says with a little shrug.

“You’re missing out.”

Kickoff transpires in the middle of the field and Josh tries his damnedest to concentrate on the game, but it’s difficult. First of all because while their rivalry with the Panthers is mostly a friendly one, he doesn’t really care about the outcome of this matchup. The only football games he really puts stock in are his own and when the Browns are on TV.

Second of all because Ty stands very close to him during the first half of the game, grinning and staring up at Josh every couple of seconds with her sweet smile, nose going pink in the cool air.

“Don’t you ever get cold in that?” Josh gestures to her skirt in the middle of the second quarter.

“Sometimes.” She sways back and forth and as Jenna answers a call from the cheerleading coach, Ty leans toward Josh and bats her eyelashes. “It helps if I have someone to keep me warm.”

Then Ty is being called to the bleachers to help fix another girl’s hair and Josh is left to stand in the air cutting like knives wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean.

Ty flirts with him - he’s not completely oblivious to that. And it’s not even that she and Josh wouldn’t go together; if they did start dating they’d be the perfect couple. The jock football player and his gorgeous cheerleader girlfriend. But sometimes he thinks flirting is all it is, especially because a person like Ty must attract dozens of guys way hotter than Josh.

Even as he thinks this he sees some of the guys from the home team watching her, delicate fingers parting the other girl’s braids into sections and twining them gently.

But when Ty glances up she does so at Josh, not at the line of boys drooling over her.

Josh sips at his water and looks away, back toward the game.

Ty joins him again not too long after and Josh takes a deep breath. “So do you?”

“Hm?” Ty’s eyes are wide and shimmering.

“Have someone to keep you warm.”

And then it’s halftime and Ty is winking, taking Josh’s chilly fingers in hers and leading him out onto the field, trailed by the rest of the cheerleaders and the remainder of Josh’s team.

“This wasn’t in the deal,” Michael mutters, to a tall red-haired girl with a spattering of freckles across her nose.

“I guess your brother added a little something on.” The girl shrugs, a devious smile on her face.

Ty leaves Josh with a brush of their fingers together and Josh’s team finds themselves huddled in the middle of the field with the cheerleaders forming a ring around them. They start a cheer that ends with Ty in front of Josh, pulling him forward. Glancing around, Josh sees there’s a player for each cheerleader.

“You have to throw me,” Ty says, and Josh balks.

“Uh…”

“And catch me, obviously. I know you have skill throwing things-“

“Yeah, footballs-“

“-so just trust me, okay? Pick me up.”

Josh hoists Ty into his arms bridal style and his arm nestles into the warm pocket of her bent knees, just below her skirt. Like a prepubescent boy, he wishes he weren’t wearing a jacket so that they’d be touching skin to skin, even though it’s only about 20 degrees.

“On Jenna’s count,” Ty instructs, and her eyes are trusting.

Jenna is a few people down the circle, being held by a player of her own. She glances around and then nods. “1, 2, 3!”

Josh braces his biceps, tosses Ty into the air alongside her fellow cheerleaders. She twirls in midair, skirt flying out, and Josh tries hard this time not to look up it. Only he does, sees only a peek of a pair of black underwear - he can’t even tell what style - before he’s catching her again in a flurry of red and yellow, pom poms hitting him in the nose.

The crowd cheers and Josh sets Ty on her feet. She turns quickly and throws her arms around him again, presses sticky lips to Josh’s. Josh feels a shiver run through him, Ty’s tongue poking insistently at the seam of his mouth, which he opens, winding his arms around her middle.

Time slows and even though he’s aware of people clapping for them, Jenna wiping away a fake tear of joy, he can only take particular note of the way Ty’s velvet lips feel on his, the way she’s jumping into his arms for him to catch her again. He does so with his hands high up on on her thighs, skin to skin just like he wanted. She wraps her legs around him and continues to kiss him until the cheers turn to disgruntled murmurs and someone yells, “get a room!”

Only then does she break away, breathing heavily and resting their foreheads together. Josh carries her to the sideline so the game can resume, but doesn’t put her down. In fact, her legs tighten even further around him. Her lip gloss is still on perfectly, though Josh can taste it in his mouth. Watermelon.

He knows people are watching them, but finds it difficult to care when he leans in for another kiss, softer than the last. Their lips get stuck together with the gloss when they pull away and Ty laughs, a warm gust of air over Josh’s chin.

“Been waiting forever to do that,” she says, hoists herself up from where she’s been slipping a little with Josh’s help. “Sorry it took me so long.”

“If you hadn’t done it I probably never would have. You intimidate me.”

She blushes again, high on her pretty cheekbones. “Really?”

Josh nods, thumbs skimming uncertainly over the soft skin of her thighs. “You wanna be my girl? I can warm you up plenty.”

Ty nods this time, and presses her chilly nose to Josh’s cheek. “Can I be your boy, too?”

“My prince,” Josh says by way of an answer. “And my princess.”

Ty squirms and Josh finally sets her down, where they stand holding hands to watch the rest of the game.

**Author's Note:**

> always taking requests at my [tumblr](http://vintagetyler.tumblr.com/).


End file.
